EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16 , 2022

New Phase of Anglo-American/NATO War Rhetoric Rings Hollow

March 15, 2022 (EIRNS)—Along with the fighting and casualties in Ukraine, a special phase of grandstanding is now in play in the confrontation provoked against Russia by the British-American/NATO bloc for years. Leading figures of this front are staging dramatic declarations and appeals about democracy, anti-authoritarianism, Western unity, and other rhetoric, all the while conducting economic warfare against Russia and “secondary” targets, and committing self-destruction of what’s left of the Western economy.

It was announced today that President Biden will go next week to Europe, for the March 24 NATO event, and European Council session of the EU heads of state and government. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress tomorrow morning by video; he briefed the Canadian Parliament today. In Kiev this morning, the heads of state of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia came in by early train to show their solidarity, coordinated with the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is in Brussels for the NATO meeting tomorrow.

Their message: Support our supreme unilateralism or be damned. This was attempted yesterday in the seven-hour meeting in Rome between U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s Yang Jiechi, top diplomat and CPC Political Bureau member. It didn’t fly, of course. Look at the content of what it means to comply with Western “rules-based orders,” in terms of one of the world’s basic necessities—food.

On March 9, a meeting on the food crisis was held in Europe by the EU’s European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism, an outfit newly created in 2021, at which the European-wide farmers’ association and several member nations appealed to set aside production restrictions in the EU’s Green Deal, Farm to Fork, and Biodiversity Strategies. They reported on the food and farming crisis. Three countries reported that they will run out of livestock feed by Easter. Timing is critical, with imports from North America taking up to 40 days. There is a seed shortage at the time of spring planting. On the international side, World Food Program (WFP) chief David Beasley pointed out last week that Ukraine accounted for 50% of all the WFP grain purchased for food relief to feed 125 million people, “day in and day out.” He made an appeal for that to be taken up by potential food-exporting nations. However, the EU bureaucracy refused the appeals across the board, and even disallowed these points as topics of discussion. In fact, it was asserted that the current dry spell hitting crops and pastures in the Mediterranean was “proof” of the climate change crisis, for which even more food production should be cut in the name of reducing emissions and saving biodiversity.

The moral of this story? The green killer agenda, and the Malthusian U.S./U.K./NATO agenda, as seen in Ukraine, are one and the same evil policy, which must be stopped.

There are significant shifts away from it, despite the bullying and danger. Last week former Bolivian President Evo Morales (2006-2019) spoke out for mobilizing to dissolve NATO. Morales charged that NATO’s “expansionist” and “interventionist” policies were the cause of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, for which he holds the U.S. solely responsible. “The U.S. always provokes wars to sell its weapons, interventions, military bases, to take over natural resources.... It is not only looking for Ukraine’s resources, but also to encircle Russia militarily,” he said.

In economics front, there are notable rearrangements taking place in trade commitments and currencies, which EIR’s Paul Gallagher calls the “boomerang effect” of Western sanctions. He states, “The use of the dollar to steal national financial reserves and attack the Russian economy is a boomerang, driving nations to cut down their own dollar reserves and try to use other currencies for trade.” For example, there are talks between Saudi Arabia and China to begin pricing some of the Saudi oil sales in yuan.

Also, a video conference took place March 11, on: “New Stage of Monetary, Financial and Economic Cooperation Between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the People’s Republic of China. Global Transformations: Challenges and Solutions.” The leading backer of the contingency for a new system, Sergei Glazyev, Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), said that a draft plan for the system would be completed by the end of this month. “Given the common challenges and risks associated with the global economic slowdown and restrictive measures against the EAEU and Chinese states, our countries should step up practical cooperation both at the level of regular expert dialogues and in the form of joint measures and projects.”

This is the spirit of the process initiated by the Schiller Institute, in its petition to “Convoke an International Conference To Establish a New Security and Development Architecture for All Nations.” A conference is in the works, but don’t wait. Contribute your policy and organizing ideas, courage, and resources to make the long-overdue miracle happen.